I loved hearing about your goals in the comments of the first post in this Goals series.
- Jen wants to pay off her car and get into routines to make home life run more smoothly
- Josie wants to deal with writing up a will
- Nichole (the first participant in the Frugal Mama Makeover series) wants to pay off her credit card before her new baby arrives
- Noelle and her husband are going to take Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University
- Rebeccarama is going to use prepaid credit cards to stay out of debt and rack up rewards points while saving up now for Christmas next year
- Jenny wants to transform her small business into something more flexible so she can create time for art projects and starting a family
I love how all of these goals are specific and unique to each person. Once we write goals down, they instantly become more doable. I hope you’ll continue to share your hopes and dreams with me. I will support you!
So now for another one of my goals for this year.
Goal #2 | Making a House Into a Home without Going into Debt
It’s been six months since we moved into our new house and, while some parts of it look good, other rooms make me feel like we’re still living like college students.
The house belonged to an older couple with grown children, and it’s not totally right for our family. For example, our back yard is covered with gravel and there is no way for the kids to get there from the second-floor deck on the back of our house. And the only access to one of the three bedrooms is through our master bathroom. There is no coat closet, no guest room, no office, and the kitchen is dominated by a huge black restaurant range from 1973 that only works half the time.
Our Problem
We want to make our home comfortable and cozy, and preserve its historic charm, yet pay for it in cash.
No More Borrowing
Our only debt is our mortgage, but I just don’t feel good about borrowing money for a house we already paid a lot for. Washington, D.C. is an expensive housing market, and the frugal choice would have been the four-bedroom apartment we considered seriously. If I had been more practical, I would have tried harder to find a house that was set-up for a family with children.
But — no regrets. D.C. has always been a strong real estate market, and this house is big enough to accommodate our family comfortably over the years, so we won’t have to move again. Plus we love it, and when you’re spending that much money, you have to feel the love.
Don’t Touch That
We could just spend money on the house as it becomes available, but I have to remember Goal #1: Save for Retirement. And we must maintain our rainy-day savings at six months of expenses — no dipping in allowed just because we “need” a guest room.
What We’ve Done So Far
Planning Ahead
One of the five keys to saving money and living well is planning ahead, and whatever we do to this house I want to do it once and do it well. I’m not talking about magazine “well”, I’m talking about durable materials and thoughtful design “well.”
In addition to drawing up my own floor plans of the house, and penciling and erasing over them with my mom dozens of times, I’ve met with two architects, one interior decorator, four contractors, an arborist, and a landscape designer. The idea was to get a master plan, and then chip away at it when funds became available. After talking with all these professionals, I have a pretty good idea about what needs to be done first, what can wait; and what is going to cost a lot, and what could cost less.
Working With What We Have
We have rearranged the furniture too many times for my husband to want to remember. I think each of our many couches has had a stay on every floor. I’ve moved stuff from the attic to the basement, and from the basement to the attic. And we’ve taken care of un-fun but important issues like having the gutters repaired and cleaned, the rotted wood replaced, and the laundry machines transferred from the second floor to the basement.
After all the cross-country moving we’ve done, I can’t believe we have more to purge, but I’ve given away even more of our things, so that we could fit more nicely into the spaces that we have.
Readjusting Expectations
We have gone from sweeping our arms in the air and saying things like, “We’ll just screen in this porch, convert this garage to an in-law suite, and finish the basement,” to saying things like, “All the basement really needs is a paint job.”
Just maintaining a house is a heavy load, so doing major work is a big huge extra. We have to remind ourselves that when you own a house, you can’t check DONE on the House box after a month of living there, as we did when we were renting.
But that’s OK: until we have the funds to make things the way that we want them, we will find cheaper solutions. There’s an amazing amount you can do just by getting the right furniture, creating spaces with curtains and dividers, getting rid of more stuff, painting, and placing area rugs to create rooms within rooms.
What We Will Do This Year
Take Action
I’ve spent much of my adult life being too scared, confused, or overwhelmed to do anything. In the past two years, I’ve seen how powerful it is to just take one small action towards a goal. I still feel overwhelmed with the house stuff sometimes, but I will continue to take baby steps toward getting things done. Whether it’s looking up a handyman on Angie’s List or making a phone call to the water-heater company, I will move forward.
Embrace the Trade-offs of Delegating
I know that the potential for DIY projects here is huge, but I’d rather dedicate my time and energy to my career (more on those goals soon). So I am going to fully accept the trade-offs of delegating (as explained so well in Buttoned Up’s Pretty Neat): by hiring someone to do the work, I will lose money. But I will gain quality and time.
Since a cozy and pretty home is important to me, I will ask the interior designer I worked with to help me make decisions. One of the points in Wicked Success is Inside Every Woman is that, if we are to do our next Big Thing (more on that soon), we must find areas in our life where we can delegate. I have decided that: (1) I don’t have the knack for decorating, (2) I don’t have the time to learn how to make improvements myself, and (3) this is one area where I can relinquish control and definitely get higher quality while relieving stress.
Cross Off One Big Project
Instead of hemming and hawing and delaying and postponing, I want to get at least one big project done on the house this year. That means (1) saving up the money, (2) planning as much as possible ahead of time, and (3) bucking up to live amidst noise, dust, and dirty boots. We will prioritize the spaces we use the most: the kitchen (because replacing the broken range will require some rearranging), the living room (an awkward set-up) and the library (which could be transformed into a foyer with coat closets and places to put shoes and backpacks).
Earmark Income and Safeguard Windfalls
With Enrico’s accepting a full-time job, while still maintaining a private practice, we should see some funds coming in. However we will have to come up with a system of setting that money aside. As I pointed out last week in Take These 5 Baby Steps to Get Your Finances Organized at Parentables, an automatic transfer to a targeted savings account would probably be the best solution.
We also got a windfall from Enrico’s dad who sold a parking space in Milan for $30,000 (can you believe that?) and generously divided the funds between Enrico and his brother. By depositing it into a new savings account that is labeled Home Renovations, we can send a hands-off message to ourselves.
Next Goal: Create an Edible Front Yard
We will need to reserve some funds for our outdoor areas, since it’s important to me for my kids to be able to play outside in nature. Next up, I’ll talk about my goal for landscaping with edible plants, as well as other ideas for re-imagining our outdoor spaces to be more kid-friendly and enticing.
Please continue to use the comments space to tell me about your goals. I will respond to every one!
Share this post:
Hi again Amy! You are such an inspiration! Thinking this through now will pay off big later(pardon the pun)! Remember the people in the home it was really makes it home, and I am sure that you have made a wonderful home for your family!! Thanks for the mention and I am praying you see all your dreams come true in your home!!